Counting Up ObamaCare's Health Cost Inflation

Sally Pipes
, ContributorI cover health policy as President of the Pacific Research InstituteOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

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It's time to add yet another study to the growing list of research showing that ObamaCare isn't delivering on its grand promises.

In the July issue of the journal Health Affairs, Medicare's actuaries released new estimates of the rate of growth of national health costs. Surprise, surprise -- they're projected to increase over the next decade.

The bad news for ObamaCare's proponents? ObamaCare won't help contain health costs, as the president so often claimed while lobbying for passage of his reform package. Instead, it will exacerbate them. Remember his oft-repeated statement that his plan would "cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year." As the CBO rightly explained, premiums will rise by $2,100.

Researchers estimate that health care spending will grow an average of 5.8% per year through 2020. The actuaries found that total health care costs in this country will hit $4.6 trillion by the end of the decade -- equivalent to about one-fifth of the entire U.S. economy. That's about $14,000 in annual spending for every man, woman, and child.

In 2014, when the law's major coverage provisions kick in, total healthcare costs will jump 8.3 percent -- a rate well above the 5.5% expected for 2013. As the study puts it, the president's law is "anticipated to contribute to a significant acceleration in the national health spending growth rate in 2014."